The present invention relates to a device for driving the-cylinder of a hosiery machine, i.e. a machine for manufacturing tubular fabrics, notably stockings and panty-hoses (collants) and in particular relates to rotor assembly of a brushless motor.
Knitting machines for producing tubular fabrics are commonly provided with a hollow cylinder, open at both ends, connected to a cylindrical knitting needle-head which is rotatably mounted on bearings on the machine's bench. Numerous mechanical components which are sequentially controlled by the speed of rotation of the knitting head cooperate with the latter and produce the desired knitting of the various textile threads which are customarily fed to the knitting head from a plurality of coils held in an aerial structure of the machine. The tubular fabric, the stocking or panty hose which is produced hangs down passing through a hollow cylinder connected to the knitting needle head and rotating together with the latter and is recovered through the bottom end of the rotating cylinder.
The cylinder acts as a rotating spindle of the knitting head and is rotated by means of a driving electric motor, which is housed under the machine's bench. Transmission of rotation to the spindle-cylinder of the machine is customarily made by means of a belt transmission between a motor's pulley and a pulley mounted on the machine's cylinder-spindle. These traditional transmissions have a nonnegligeable cost and exert a flexural force on the cylinder which on the other hand is often connected in a cantilever manner to the base of the knitting head. Moreover they encumber the cabinet space underneath the machine's bench and are often cause of stoppages for the periodic substitution of worn out belts, etc.